The Yankees at long last broke their losing streak, ending it at seven games after putting up five runs for the first time since June 19th against the Reds. The Twins had their chances to match them, but New York’s pitching held them in check with only Fernando Cruz getting himself into some trouble walking two batters in his inning of work. After finally stopping the bleeding, the only thing that could’ve made things better would’ve been the Rays breaking their winning streak at the same time —
alas, not everything lined up how they wanted on Friday.
Tampa Bay Rays (52-33) 3, Houston Astros (43-47) 1
It was a close, low-scoring affair down in Houston as the Rays opened up a series against the Astros. The AL East leaders had won eight straight games entering the contest, but they took a while to get going facing Spencer Arrighetti. The Astros’ right-hander tossed six innings and didn’t give many opportunities to , working around a leadoff single by immediately inducing a double play and then getting a one-out walk erased thanks to Yainer Diaz throwing out the runner.
The third through fifth inning saw Arrighetti mow down Tampa Bay in order, but with two outs in the sixth Nick Fortes finally got the scoring started with a solo shot clanking off the wall in left field.
Houston didn’t go down without a fight, of course. Nick Martinez was doing a similar job to Houston’s offense through five, but Yordan Alvarez got to him in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game right back up with a solo shot of his own, his 27th of 2026 (he now has a very impressive 187 wRC+). Tampa fought right back, getting a Junior Caminero home run—his 10th in 10 games—to go ahead 2-1 in the seventh inning and a Fortes RBI double in the eighth to jump ahead by two runs.
As for the Astros, after that Alvarez blast they were blanked the rest of the way, getting a single immediately afterwards only for the next 11 Houston at-bats to all end in an out. The Yankees remain four games behind the Rays in the AL East with a series looming early next week.
Other Games
Toronto Blue Jays (42-46) 2, Seattle Mariners (45-44) 0: Half of our Rivalry teams were playing up in the Pacific Northwest as Toronto made one inning count enough to carry them to victory. Luis Castillo had one of his better outings this year, tossing six innings and allowing just five hits, but four of them came in the top of the third leading to an RBI double from Andrés Giménez and an RBI single from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to give the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead. That was all the damage necessary to tag Castillo with the loss as Dylan Cease shoved on the other end, pitching seven shutout with nine strikeouts before passing the baton over to Jeff Hoffman and Louis Varland to close the game out. The idle Rangers moved half a game ahead of Seattle in the light AL West.
Cleveland Guardians (47-42) 4, Chicago White Sox (45-42) 3 (10 innings): This was a battle of the bullpens as neither starter made it through a full five innings of work. Chicago’s Anthony Kay blinked first, issuing two walks to lead off the third inning that got moved over on a bunt, but Cleveland only scored one run on the opportunity as Travis Bazzana singled in the lead runner before David Fry grounded into an inning-ending double play. Gavin Williams wound up with the worse stat line, allowing two singles to lead off the fifth and nearly stranding them just to lose a 10-pitch battle with Miguel Vargas that ended in a three-run blast.
After a rain delay briefly interrupted the action, Cleveland got to work tying the game back up. The seventh inning saw them work a pair of walks but go down to two outs as well, just for Austin Hedges to find a fastball over the middle to slap to shortstop hard enough that the ball deflected off of the fielder’s glove. That scored a run and kept the inning alive, and Steven Kwan cashed in with a single to bring home another and tie the game at three. Extra innings were brutal for Chicago, as they went down in order in the top of the 10th while the Guardians got singles from Bazzana and Kahlil Watson to walk it off.
